When  we went to the campfire, we were introduced to a Native American named Kimberly Shining Star.  She showed  us some of her rattles and shakers and the drum she made.  She let some of the kids play the instruments. My favorite was the deer-toe rattle: it was made out of real deer toes …it kind of freaked me out, but it was cool. Then  she told stories which were amazing. I actually felt like I was right there in the stories.  She told us the meanings of the stories: Don’t do something dumb if your friend is doing it…like drugs.

It was fun gold panning, but I didn’t get any. You had to follow three easy steps: 1: Tsunami 2: Earthquake 3: Flood. There was not that much gold in the troughs. Some people got a lot of gold and some got none.

There are three kinds of gold mining:

1. Hardrock mining which means digging into the earth:
2. Hydraulic mining which  uses pressurized water to spray the mountain side:
3. Placer mining which involves water.

You can use a rocker if you have a partner, or a long tom if you have at least 2 partners.

The Forty Niners had a hard life. Most did not strike it rich. Prices in the gold fields were sky high, and the miners used all their gold to survive.

The first night in Coloma we went to the hoedown. Kind Kas was my hoedown partner. She was fun to dance with. We did two kinds of dances. The first one was a circle dance, and in the second one we skipped between two rows of students. When I was done with the first dance, I did not want to stop because it was so much fun. Even though I was all out of breath, I sighed wanting to do more. After the hoedown we went to camp fire and cooled off.

Coloma was so much fun! We played games with other kids from different schools. My favorite part of Coloma was The Solo Walk. We hiked up a hill which was kind of steep but we did it anyway. Our guides name was Star Gazer. She was singing songs and we would repeating it. It was fun!

Another activity I liked was was becoming a sourdough because we got got beeds to put on our pouches. The red beed was for respect, The blue beed was for the American River, The green beed was for nature, The yellow beed was for the Gold History, The orange beed was for Golden Dust Pan Award, and The black beed was for The fourth grade project. After we got all our beeds we dipped our pouches in the American River!

We had a BLAST at Coloma!!!

This is Savanna singer AKA Tyler. Sorry that I could not make it to Coloma.

Professor Hike

By Mark Callaway

On the professor hike we all  studied a certain tree in a group of students.  I studied the Ponderosa Pine tree. The Ponderosa Pine tree is the tallest and straightest tree in the Coloma Valley and its bark is like puzzle pieces.  It is so tall and straight that it was the number one wood the miners used.  It is also immune to most natural forest fires because as the tree gets older it starts to lose its lower branches. Its bark is layered so the fires just burn the first layer.

I also learned about the Manzanita tree.  The Spanish thought that the Manzanita tree’s buds looked like little apples. So they named it Manzanita which means little apples.

On the way back down the mountain, Poison Oak was growing into the path.  Poison Oak comes in green,red,light green, and brown. The shiny oily stuff is what gives you a rash.

Kimberly Shiningstar

By Bob Ox

In Coloma  a Native American speaker named Kimberly Shining Star came to talk to us. She told us creation myths, sang old Miwok songs, and told us how to talk to animals and plants. One of the stories was about a boy who saw people climbing a mountain to see the creator.

In the morning the boy snuck out to the mountain. He climbed up the mountain. When he got to the top, he didn’t see the creator, so he started back down. He was almost down when he heard a rattlesnake. He jumped back. The rattlesnake said, “ If you pick me up and carry me down the mountain, I will not bite you.” “No. You are rattlesnake. You lie. You will bite me.”

This went on until it got dark. The boy was desperate to get back to his people, so he picked up the snake and carried it down the mountain. When he set it down, it bit him! “You said you wouldn’t bite me!” said the boy. “You know what  I was when you picked me up.”

It is said that this story is true and that the boy died on the spot. The moral: If you know something is dangerous, don’t get involved with it.

My favorite activity in Coloma was going to the Blacksmith. At the shop, the blacksmith showed how easy it was to bend hot iron. He also told us what everything on the counter was. There were candle holders, decorations, coat holders, and tools. He told us how anvils were made. They weren’t made at the Blacksmith; and they were made from 3 different types of metal.

The Blacksmith had to get the fire over 1000 degrees to make the iron red hot! He took a gripping tool from his work table and gripped the red hot end of the iron and bent it like rubber. Then he dipped the iron in cold water. It sizzled really loudly, but it stopped after 5 seconds. Even though the iron was still twisted, it was as hard as a rock.

The Blacksmith told us how he made lots of tools. He makes a lot of peg things that hold pieces of metal together. He also likes to make little metal dragonflies. The blacksmith gets the iron in rods. It seems to be hard to be a blacksmith.

My favorite place in Coloma was the Blacksmith Shop. I liked it because

1. We got to see a Blacksmith at work.
2. I learned that to bend iron you have to get it up to a temperature of 2,200 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!!! And
3. We learned that there are many types of candle holders.

In the shop we saw a lot of things like wagon brakes, iron ingots, and horseshoes. We also saw S-hooks and hoof-cuffs. We saw the Blacksmith pump air into the fire that had a piece of scrap   iron in it until the iron looked like it had an internal fire. He bent it to show us what you can do with iron.